Judgement Day. What it really is.

February 25th, 1918
Received by:James Padgett
Washington D.C.

I am here, Jesus:

I am here and desire to write a few lines in reference to the great day of judgment, of which the preacher and teachers of theological things write so often.

I know that the Bible, or rather some of the books, lay great stress upon this day when, as they claim, God will pour out His vials of wrath upon the ungodly and condemn them to an eternity of punishment.

There is, as you know, very great and diverse opinions among these learned men as to what is the meaning and significance of this day of judgment, and when, in a chronological point of view, it will take place; and all these varied opinions have many students and teachers who embrace and proclaim them to the world as being true and free from doubt.

Well, it is certain that all men must die and there will come the judgment, and that which follows the death is just as certain as is the death itself, and just as reasonable as is the following of any cause by an effect. So men should have no difficulty in believing in the judgment as a fact that cannot be avoided, just as death cannot be avoided.

But the word and the fact, judgment, when used as an effect or following of death, may have many meanings in the opinions and understandings of many men, depending upon what men may believe as to things that are called religious or scientific or philosophical.

To the ultra-orthodox this term judgment means and necessarily comprehends the active pronouncement of a sentence by God, because of and determined by their lives and thoughts while living in the mortal life, irrespective of any of His general laws and the workings thereof.

God is Himself the judge - personal and present - and by Him in this capacity are each man's life and works known and digested and made the basis of the sentence that He must pronounce in each individual case. God keeps the record of all of these acts of men, or, if man is conceded to be his own record-keeper, his records are, or will be, at the time of the great assemblage for judgment, opened up or brought into view so that nothing can be lost; and then, upon this record men will be sent to eternal happiness or to everlasting punishment, or, as some believe, to destruction or annihilation.

Others, not orthodox, who believe in the survival of the soul and the continuing memories of the acts and thoughts of men, teach that the judgment will follow death as a natural consequence of the operations of the law of cause and effect; and the effect cannot be escaped from, until in some way there comes to the consciousness of men a realization that the effect in their suffering has satisfied the cause and that there is nothing mysterious or unnatural in the appearance and workings of the judgment. They do not believe that God by any special interposition or personal punishing will pronounce the judgment, or determine the merits or demerits of the one called to judgment.

Besides these views, there are others extant and believed in, but the two that I have mentioned are principle ones and are sufficient to show what the large majority of thinking or rather believing, men conclude the term judgment as used in the Bible should mean or be understood to mean.

Well, the judgment of the human soul is an important accompaniment of the human life, both in the flesh and in the spirit world, and as regards the questions and punishments, hardly anything demands more of the thought and consideration of men, for it is a certainty that beliefs, true or false, he cannot avoid them.

Judgment as certainly follows what men call death as does night the day, and no philosophy or theological dogmas or scientific determinations can alter the fact, or in any way change the character or exact workings of this judgment.

But judgment is not a thing belonging exclusively to the after-death period or condition, for it is present and operating with men from the time that they become incarnated in the human until they become disincarnate, and thereafter continuously until the causes of effects have been satisfied and there remains nothing to be judged, which happy ending is also a fact - for all men are dependent upon their progress towards the conditions of harmony with the laws that make effective as well as pronounce the judgments.

While on earth these laws operate, and continuously man is being judged for the causes that he starts into existence, and the after-death judgment is only a continuation of the judgment received by men while on earth.

Of course - men may not know this - these judgments or the effects thereof, become more intensified after men have gotten rid of the influences of the flesh existence, and they become spirits, having only the spirit qualities. And because of this fact men must understand and try to realize that the expression "after death, the judgment" has a greater significance and is of more vital importance than the saying - that "judgment is with men all during their mortal lives."

After death the causes of the inharmony with the law becomes more pronounced, and appear in the true meaning and force, and, consequently, as this is true the effects become more intensified and understood, and men suffer more and realize the darkness, and sometimes the gross darkness, that these effects produce. The inharmony appears in its unclothed and unhidden reality, and the law's workings bring to men the exact penalties that their violations demand.

Man is his own bookkeeper, and in his memory are recorded all the thoughts and deeds of his earth life that are not in accord with the harmony of God's will, which is expressed or manifested by His laws.

The judgment is not the thing of a day or a time, but is never ceasing so long as there exists that upon which it can operate, and it diminishes in proportion as the causes of inharmony disappear.

God is not present in wrath demanding, as does the human who believes himself to have been injured demanding reparation by the one causing the injury. No - the Father is present only in love, and as the soul of the one undergoing the penalty, which his own deeds and thoughts have imposed upon him, comes more in harmony with the Father's will, He, as you mortals say, is pleased.

Never an angry God, rejoicing in the satisfaction of a penalty being paid by one of His erring children, but always a loving Father rejoicing in the redemption of His children from a suffering that a violation of the laws of harmony exacts with certitude.

Then, as I say, the judgment day is not a special time when all men must meet in the presence of God, and have their thoughts and deeds weighed in the balance, and then, according as they are good or evil, have the sentence of an angry, or even just God pronounced upon them.

The judgment day is every day, both in the earth life of man and in life in the spirit, where the law of compensation is working.

In the spirit world time is not known and every breathing is a part of eternity, and with every breathing so long as the law requires, comes the judgment, continued and unsatisfied, until man, as a spirit, reaches that condition of harmony, so that for him, no longer the law demands a judgment.

But from what I have written, men must not suppose, or beguile themselves into that state of belief that will cause them to think that because there is no special day of judgment when God will pronounce His sentence, the judgment, therefore, is not so much to be dreaded or shunned.

No, this state of thinking will palliate only for the moment, for the judgment is certain, and is and will be no less to be dreaded, because the immutable law demands exact restoration instead of an angry God.

No man who has lived and died has escaped, and no man who shall hereafter die can escape this judgment unless he has, in a way provided by the Father in His love, become in harmony with the laws requiring harmony. "As a man soweth so shall he reap" is as true as is the fact that the sun shines upon the just and the unjust alike.

Memory is man's storehouse of good and evil, and memory does not die with the death of the man's physical body, but on the contrary, becomes more alive - all alive - and nothing is left behind or forgotten when the spirit man casts off the encumbrance and the benumbing and deceiving influences of the only body of man that was created to die.

Judgment is real, and men must come to it face-to-face, and want of belief or unbelief or indifference or the application to men's lives of the saying "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" will not enable men to avoid the judgment or the exactions of its demands.

There is a way, though, in which men may turn the judgment of death into the judgment of life - inharmony into harmony - suffering into happiness - and judgment itself into a thing to be desired.

Elsewhere we have written of this way open to all men, and I will not attempt to describe it here.

I have written enough for to-night. You are tired and must not be drawn on further.

So with my love I will say good-night.
 

Your brother and friend,

Jesus 

Ann Rollins describes her experience passing over

March 5th, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington D.C.

I am here, your Grandmother.

Yes, it is I. I want to tell you of my experience in progressing in the spirit life.

Well, when I passed over, I was received in the spirit world by your grandfather and my own dear mother who had been in the spirit world for so very many years. She was then living in the seventh sphere and was a most beautiful and happy spirit. Now she is far up in the Celestial Spheres, and occasionally comes to see me and tells me of the great beauty of her home, and of the wonderful spirits who inhabit the spheres where she lives.

She lives in a high sphere of the Celestial Heavens, and is with many of the redeemed spirits who lived on earth many centuries ago. She mentioned some of them who were well known on earth, such as John Wesley and his brother Charles, and Luther and some of his contemporaries who were engaged in the great reforms of those days. Whitefield is one she named, and Bunyan, also. They seemed to have reached this sphere by obtaining the Love that we have written you of. So, when I think that, through gradual development and progression of my spiritual being, there are these high spheres for me to attain to, I feel that my faith and seeking for the Divine Love have a great deal yet to accomplish, in the way of soul development.

Well, shortly after I passed over, I progressed to the third sphere, and thought that there the very seat of heaven must be, because my happiness was so much greater than I ever anticipated.

Well, when I first entered the spirit world, I confess I was disappointed, because I did not see the Father on his throne and Jesus sitting on his right hand, as I had been taught to believe; but it was not long before I realized that such a belief had no foundation in truth, and that God has no throne, such as the writers of the Bible had declared, but that His Spirit is manifested everywhere and in all places, and is a Spirit that has no form in the sense that I had been taught to believe.

After living in the third sphere for some little time, and having received much information from spirits who lived in higher spheres, and having received a great abundance of God's Love, I progressed to the fifth sphere and found a wonderful home of beauty and harmony among spirits who had experiences similar to my own, and who had received the Divine Love to a degree which gives us all this great happiness that I tell you of.

In some of the planes of this sphere are many spirits who have not received this Divine Love, but who have attained to wonderful moral and intellectual qualifications; but they were not so happy as were those who had received the Great Love of the Father. They gave their thoughts and works more to things that pertain to moral and intellectual progress than to the soul development in the Divine Love.

It may seem strange to you that these spirits could live in an atmosphere where so much of God's Love was manifested by the numerous spirits who had received this Love, and yet, not realize that this Divine Love is the one great thing absolutely necessary for their further progress and greater happiness. But such is the fact, and many of these spirits of the greatest intellectual development are still pursuing their studies of laws that have to do solely with things that relate to the operations of spiritual laws and the causes of phenomena that astonish both mortals and spirits.

I have wondered many times that they have not had an awakening to the real and grander truths of spirit life, and to the causes of the development of the souls of those with whom they come in contact, who are so much more beautiful and happier than are these students of merely spiritual laws and causes that produce only astonishing phenomena.

Strange as it may seem to some, intellectual progression is not necessary to soul progression, but with soul progression by obtaining the Divine Love comes a wonderful knowledge of these other things that I speak of. I, as you know, was a person of just ordinary mental acquirements, yet in this spirit world I have left behind me many great minds possessed of wonderful intellectual information. I mean not only as regards the progress of my soul, but also as regards the attainment of knowledge that these men are devoting their time and work to obtain.

Strange also, it may seem to you, that with soul development in the Divine Love there comes intellectual development, but to us who have experienced this fact it is not strange, because the mind is only an attribute or, as I may say, a quality of the soul, and as the soul develops in the Divine Love, the mind must necessarily also develop.

Philosophy is merely the conclusion of minds that have given thought and investigation to the subject matter of that philosophy, and, when it is determined by the mere mind, it is still uncertain, and subject to revision and change as the mind may change.

The mind, in its development, does not necessarily learn the full and real truth; and in this spirit life, among these men of purely great minds that do not possess the Divine Love, there is as much variety of opinion, and as many disputes as to what is the truth, as there are on earth. The mind, of itself, cannot always discern the truth, because it is not infallible, even when it is the mind of a spirit and that spirit a highly developed one.

But as the soul develops in the Divine Love, this development means that what comes to it as a fact, is a truth - the everlasting truth. The soul does not learn all truths at once, but the truth that it does learn is one that never changes, and lets no revision alter or set it aside.

No, truth of the soul's discernment is never shown to be error, and no error ever becomes a part of the soul's discernment of truth. So, you see, the great road to the ascertainment of the realities of God is through, and only through, the development of the soul by the inflowing of the Divine Love. The eye of the soul is that interior perception which needs not reason from cause and effect to discern and forever establish the truths of God.

So, how very necessary that men and spirits should learn the great fact, that if they would learn the truth of spirit life, they must endeavor to develop the soul's powers of perception by seeking for the inflowing into their souls of the Divine Love.

I could tell you many wonderful things to illustrate these propositions, if I had the time to do so, but I have not now; but sometime I will go more in detail on this subject, and then you will more fully understand what I mean.

Well, after I had lived in this fifth sphere and learned the great and wonderful truths that are taught therein, I progressed to the seventh and there learned what real happiness is, as I thought. No spirit who has not received this Great Love of the Father lives in this sphere, because the mind is, as it were, absorbed by the soul to such a great extent, that without the soul development the mind would have no place of lodgment. I mean that the mind, as such, then becomes so subordinated to the powers and operations of the soul perceptions that it cannot exist as mere mind, independent of the soul's development.

In this sphere all is grand and beautiful to an extent that I cannot describe, because you have no possible mental conception with which I can compare such beauty and grandeur.

Our homes are very harmonious and without stain or anything that emanates from things other than the soul's essence and power. No mere intellectual happiness exists, and no spirit who has not this Great Love could possibly be happy there. But yet, while all this happiness exists, I was told that happiness is far greater in the Celestial Spheres, and, consequently, I was not satisfied to remain in the seventh sphere, although I could not realize how my happiness could be any greater than it was. Yet, as I say, I was not contented to remain in my home there. And I was also told that there was a way to get into this Celestial Sphere, and a way so easy that the mere statement of it caused doubt. But I prayed for faith and the Divine Love, and on an occasion my faith brought the Divine Love into my soul in such abundance, and I progressed to the first Celestial Sphere, where I now am.

The Book of Revelation in the Bible, in its most extravagant description of the New Jerusalem, gives no true conception of what the beauty and magnificence of this sphere are; and I will not attempt to describe them, for I cannot. But a man, or spirit either, who has never seen the wonderful beauty of this sphere, cannot conceive of what its magnificence is.

I am so very happy that it seems to me there can be no greater happiness, and yet, my mother tells me that there is, and that the Divine Love of the higher spheres is so much more intense and filled with so much more of God's Divinity that I cannot have the slightest conception of what it is.

I am now trying to reach these higher spheres, and am told that faith and prayer for the inflowing into my soul of the Divine Love are the only instrumentalities that will enable me to do so. My prayers are constant and my faith is growing, and I realize, that when the Holy Spirit fills me with this Divine Love, as I expect it to do, I shall progress.

So you see, one great element of God's method of making His redeemed happy, is to set before them a higher mark for which they may seek with the assurance that it can be attained.

Well, I have written you quite a letter, and feel that I must stop now, as I need to leave the earth's atmosphere for awhile.

                                         So with all my love and blessings, I am, Your Grandmother,

                                                                            Ann Rollins